


If Love Is A Labor, I’ll Slave ’Til The End

by luninosity, significantowl



Category: British Actor RPF, X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Caretaking, Conversations, Hurt!James, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Minor Injuries, The Scottish Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 22:23:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on <a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/a3397a20dbc9aacaaa03cbc3b46b61c0/tumblr_mo5vwrQdHw1qku97lo1_500.jpg">this picture</a> of James and his poor hands from the very physical Macbeth production; we decided it called for fic about Michael taking care of him, and them having a conversation about it, after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Love Is A Labor, I’ll Slave ’Til The End

Michael comes home from his meeting—Bond, and he’s feeling good about it, even though three other names are being thrown around for consideration besides his—in a cheerful mood. Even the traffic lights’ve gone his way.

James is home from the matinee show, he notices, as he parks his bike next to that familiar one, everything right where it should be; James is home a bit early, but not early enough for him to worry. Maybe the lights were kind for those blue eyes, too.

He wanders into the flat and tosses his keys in the direction of the table and calls, “James?” and a sock-clad foot appears over the back of the sofa and wiggles at him. “Really,” Michael says, amused, and comes over and sits down beside him, “that bad?”

He knows it’s a brutal run of performances, physically demanding, emotionally grueling; he’s seen James come home bruised and battered and once limping so badly Michael’d thrown him into the car and hauled him off to the closest emergency room. He’s given all the massages he can, supplied heating pads and ice packs, held James in the night and argued loudly against the internal voices behind those eyes, when all the soreness has made sex impossible and James bites his lip and looks away and takes that as a personal failure.

Even then, they’re okay. They are, him and James: he knows they are. Through everything.

He reaches for one of James’s hands, meaning to hold it, just wanting to feel those fingers in his, solid and sturdy and freckled like celebratory confetti flung across pale Scottish linen. And then he stops.

“James,” he says, “your _hands_.”

“Yep,” James says lightly, lifting one and then the other, tilting them palm-up, palm-down.  “There they are.  Still got ’em.”

James jokes easily and often, and most of the time Michael is helpless in the face of it, quick to laugh whether James’ words are sharply clever or god-awfully cheesy, whether his delivery is crisp and dry or soaring to new heights of ridiculousness.  But never—and James knows this—when his jokes are like this, a hastily snatched up, ill-fitting mask.

Michael’s own hands are drawn into fists now, digging into his thighs.  He should relax them.  He can’t.

The cut on James’s thumb is one of the worst, a gash from just under the nail down to the base, lancing over the knuckle.  It will take a very long time to heal completely, because whenever James does anything—grip a mug of tea, hold his mobile phone, charge into battle with an axe, a dagger, a sword—that joint will bend, the skin will split, again and again.

“Please—” Michael breathes out through his nose, hard.  “Please don’t do that,” he says, gentling his tone, making it the request he knows it should be.  And James, who had been sliding his hands along his jeans, curling around his thighs, sliding under his knees—dragging against cloth along the way, Jesus God that’s got to hurt—stops.

“All right,” James says, and carefully, deliberately, lays his hands on Michael’s lap.

The bruises are as bad as the cuts.  James’s right hand is purpling badly, and Michael suspects it will get worse before it gets better.  He winces, imagining what it will look like in tomorrow morning’s sunlight, if it looks this bad in the shadows of early evening; winces again when he thinks how it must have felt to grip the handlebars of a bike.

 _Still got ’em_ , James had said.  The flash of truth under the joke, then: at some point today, if only for a second, under hot stage lights with hundreds of eyes on him, James had felt the cold, swooping fear that the opposite might be true.  The kind of blow that would leave a bruise like that—his hand had probably gone numb.  Might still be.

He doesn’t pick up that hand, in case the gesture might cause more pain. Or a lack of pain; that’s what he’s most afraid of, right now. He lets his own fingertips hover over James’s, not making contact. “Can you…feel anything? Move your fingers?”

James raises eyebrows—but not the fingers—at him. “Yes?”

“Then…move them. Please.”

A sigh, sounding put-upon; but there’s a flare of genuine worry behind the sapphires, when James gingerly flexes joints, bends his hands, winces badly enough that he can’t hide it. “See? All still functional.”

“But,” Michael says, and stops, and shakes his head; James won’t react well if pushed. “Where’s our first-aid kit?”

“Kitchen?” James sits up to watch him go and come back. Michael wants to tell him to lie down, to take care of himself. Wonders what other bruises are  hiding, concealed from his sight, beneath that bulky sweater. “I’ve no idea what’s in it. Or how old.”

“I restocked it.” He’s taking out bandages, antibiotic cream—that stage floor can’t be very clean—painkillers, everything he can think of. James looks at him, eyes flickering between emotions, the summer sky unsettled with clouds.

“When did you—”

“The second time? Last week.”

“But—”

“James,” Michael says, “hold still, please, and tell me if I hurt you, if anything hurts you,” and takes the closest hand in his, and begins, with care, trying to help it heal.

There’s a flinch or two, at the antibiotic sting; James bites his lip, eyes bright, and Michael whispers “Sorry,” and tries to be more gentle, though it won’t really do any good; it’s not his fingers making the open wounds smart. The bandages tumble into his grip, eager to be of use.

Of use, he thinks, eyes on those beloved hands. James needs those hands. And he, Michael, needs those hands too: needs them to be whole, needs James to be whole, needs James to know that every time he dismisses his own welfare so flippantly he’s scoring matching lines across Michael’s heart.

He needs James to trust him. Not just with the humor and the teasing and the strength, but with the vulnerabilities, too.

When he looks up, James is looking at him.

“I knew we needed to…” James says, gesturing between them with his free hand, but he ends that quickly on a sharp intake of breath.  Shaking his head at himself, half-snorting, James resettles his hand on Michael’s knee.   _It’s safer with you_ , the action seems to say, and Michael leans in to press his lips to James’ forehead, a thank you and an acceptance of responsibility, all at once.

Their first kiss since he’d come home, and it’s suddenly as if the air is that much easier to breathe.  James feels it too, Michael can tell by the new, soft light in his eyes, and the pleased curve of his lips.

“On the way home,” James continues, less hesitant now, “on the bike, I was going through what I should say, you know, having half the conversation without you.  Stuff about how the performance has to be good, and there not being any room for hiding on that stage, and when people buy a ticket it’s like they’re entering a bargain with me, and I have to make good on it….  And none of that’s bullshit, but you certainly know it all without me telling you, and anyway.”  James’ eyes flicker down to their hands, and he smiles crookedly.  “It’s not the point.”

“No,” Michael says.  ”No, I don’t feel like it is either.”  His fingers are coated in anti-bac cream by now, and he dabs a little of the excess over a nick on James’ wrist that he’s already treated once, thinking about the juxtaposition he holds in his hands.  Strength and flexibility; delicate tendons, delicate bones.

“Is that—did you want to do your half of the conversation now?” James asks, uncertainty creeping into his voice.  ”Or—”

“I thought you might be doing it for me,” Michael says, looking up from James’ hands to make certain James sees his smile, and doesn’t feel a sting. 

It works.  ”Lazy.”

“Guilty.”

It’s selfishness he’s guilty of, though.  He’s greedy for James’ words, James’ inflection, every little expression that accompanies his voice.  Michael doesn’t want to say what he believes the point is.  He wants it to come from James, wants every word to resonate straight through him because they’re on the same page, because James is speaking the truth written on Michael’s heart.

So, so greedy.  But life has given him so much already: James in his home, his head, his heart every day.  It’s an easy vice to fall into.

“All right,” James says, taking a breath.  ”The bargain between us.  It comes before any of that.  And I promise to—to always remember that at the end of the day, I’m James, coming home to Michael.”  He flashes a grin, but the seriousness is clear when he adds, “Even when I’m shouting my head off and charging someone with a sword.”

“Thank you,” Michael says, voice suddenly hoarse.  His instinct is to hold James tighter, make this moment even more real by drawing it closer, but he stops himself just in time— no stress on those hands—and drops his head to press into James’ shoulder instead.

“But accidents do happen,” Michael says, lifting his head, knowing that James has to hear this.  That this is his part of the bargain, perhaps more important even than being there to soothe every hurt.  ”And I’ll always understand that.  And I’ll never doubt you.  And if you come home…” He’d been about to give an example, but he can’t finish the thought; too many images swim sickeningly before his eyes, James hurt in so many ways, “… however you come home, it will never be a failure to me.  Okay?”

“Okay,” James says, and Michael catches his breath at the tone.  James believes it, believes _him_ , without reservation or doubt.  Michael reached for what he wanted, what he needed, but somehow he gave it too: words with weight and truth that echoed down to the chambers of a heart.

It’s more than he could have expected, it’s dizzying, it’s the feeling of something infinite reverberating between them, countable only in beats of their hearts; it’s the kind of thing that can only be met with a kiss.


End file.
